When She Left: April 2015 PAD Chapbook Challenge, Day Four

We took all the saucepans down,
the pots she hung from a metal grid
in the style of an ’80s movie or
a spread from a magazine,
like the ones she would buy
at the grocery store and then
try to fit us into. But with our black eyes
and skinned knees, and everything chipped,
we would not fit. So, in time, she quit making
chicken Marsala or Marbella or whatever it was,
and we ate those frozen dino-shaped nuggets,
barely warmed. When she left, we all watched
out the window, straightened ourselves up,
tried to look presentable at last. For once.
We knew she was really gone, might not
ever come back for those pots—but
we boxed them up for her anyway,
one inside the other, however
they would go.